Positive Psychology, Organizing Metaphor and People of Excellence

I have an interesting curiosity with human excellence which has led me to ferociously reading many biographies from Einstein to Lance Armstrong to Mark Twain. Each of these people of excellence had what I might call an organizing metaphor. It is a personalized philosophy that guided them through life and organized their own whimsical experience of reality. This personalized metaphor was usually based on a collection of a few significant life events early in life that they used going forward to make sense of the turbulent world around them and reducing it to principles that can be understood and worked with. For example, Einstein would obviously work to understand the world in ways that are synonymous with mathematics. While for Lance Armstrong it was perhaps the concept of a fight or to dominate, whether it was to “rip the legs off” of other rider or whether it was cancer.

All last year I had the opportunity to volunteer with the Boulder Center for Mental Health. One of the clear distinctions I quickly realized had to do with the relative lack of an organizing metaphor. My curiosity would continually push me to ask for and try to discover hints of the underlying personal philosophies of any of the members at the center where I was working. Surprisingly, nearly no one had their own self-adapted model of how to make meaning out of the world. And in fact, most were very heavy into what others told them to do, or what they should do based on the rules set forth by society, parents, and especially….psychologists. To me this was very problematic, simply because the members with some kind of mental health had readily accepted others peoples “rules of thumb” about the world and more unfortunately about the box that defined around them. This box, which is created around the diagnoses, then became the person’s held identity about themselves, likely without ever being questioned and challenged on accuracy or that there was perhaps another cause implying another (different) treatment.

Mental Health issues range from very differing types and degrees, and it is quite unfortunate (and amazing) to observe how easily the identity of some of them integrate the suggestions of others into their identity, due to lack of some kind of defense against problem/lack based psychology. It is at this point where I know there is a huge need for a new model. We need a model that is built on recognizing and bolstering the strengths of a person instead of the flaws.

This makes intuitive sense to me having come from a business background as it is the models for companies to succeed. Successful companies know that to thrive means to build on the companies strengths and minimize the weaknesses. Yet in the ream of traditional psychology this is the other way around where they focus more and more on the weaknesses, develop and administer drugs, talk about the problems, think about the problems, label and diagnose and draw all kinds of attention and awareness to the problems. Almost everyone growing up in an environment like this would eventually internalize it into their unified belief systems about themselves, known as their identity. Who they are as a person then all too easily can be understood to lack value, from society and the individual.

Positive psychology is the model that understands it is typically fruitless to try and focus on and draw all the working attention to the areas where the person fails, lacks, or struggles to deal on some level. While denying and ignoring it is probably even worst, many are now realizing that it is possible to acknowledge the whole story of good, bad, strengths and weaknesses and work with the whole person in a way that has seen business (even defunct ones) develop into thriving powerhouses in their industry. It is then interesting to understand what sets those apart which have been stuck in the negative vortex of tradition and were able to redirect their trajectory vs those who do not. I will continue to look into the presence of an internally based organizing metaphor. I would argue that it’s more than simply an internal narrative of self, or even what is typically understood as identity. Instead I believe that the metaphor acts more like an engine, where reality provides the fuel of experience, awareness, and circumstance, and that it is the design and efficiency of the engine that allows the individual (or organization) to be able to process, transform and redirect that “fuel” into mutually beneficial ways.

Related Tags: blog

Why Philosophy Rules

After talking with 2 good friends this morning, I’m reminded just what philosophy does for the way things are perceived and the process that goes on in the one who begins to think on that level.

Philosophy is simply a process of abstracting from reality of life, our experience, our feelings, and our senses. Everyone is in many ways a philosopher. Almost everyone has to live by guiding principles in their life. Almost like a complex collection of “rules of thumb” that depend highly on the conditions we are experiencing. These are the rules we have that tell us when X happens the I think/feel/do Y. The process of maturing, growth, and yes even formal education, is to shape your mind so that you can function in society without problems. And I believe the most painful part is how so many people go from birth to death without having the driving purpose to reexamine these laws to root out the ones that do not serve us.

Just stop and think about it for a minute. You have a very intertwined collection of expectations of certain people and not others, what you will and won’t stand for, what you like don’t like, and well….who you think you are. Or in simpler terms, your identity.

But wait a second. How do you know for sure that identity is accurate? What do you use to measure, evaluate, and decide….AH YES this is what I am and that is what I am not. It usually gets very interesting to realize that some (or many) of these rules were established long ago in a land far far away and now act more as a hinderance instead of favorable.

So then what do you do? How does positive and adaptive change happen? There is no magic pill, but there is a magic tool…the QUESTION. Whenever you change the question you will get different answers. Example:

Depressed person: why does this always happen to me?

Adaptive person: what can I learn from this so that I can do better next time? In what ways am I responsible for the results in my life and what do I have the control to change?

Philosophy is based on the process of asking the big questions and having to deal with getting very complex answers.

Or you could let the TV ask the questions…are you having a hard time waking up? are you constantly feeling fatigued? because WE have the ANSWER for you. only 5 easy payments of….yeah yeah yeah, you get the idea.

Related Tags: blog